tittytainment

English

Etymology

Blend of titty +‎ entertainment, in reference to the pacifying effect of watching TV, similar to that of a child sucking on its mother's breast. Coinage attributed to Polish-American diplomat and political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌtɪtiˈteɪn.mənt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪnmənt
• Hyphenation: tit‧ty‧tain‧ment

Noun

tittytainment (uncountable)

1. (informal, derogatory) A form of lowest-common-denominator entertainment designed to appeal to the masses and dissuade people from thinking.
   • 2000, David Reynolds, One World Divisible, W. W. Norton, →ISBN, pages 651–652:

     At the other extreme were those who foresaw growing international inequality—“a 20 to 80 world, a one-fifth society in which those left out will have to be pacified by tittytainment” (tits plus entertainment)—or “a deepening international anarchy” as “market forces and shrinking natural resources drag sovereign states into ever more dangerous rivalries.”

   • 2003, Dan Butts, How Corporations Hurt Us All:

     This is the 20:80 society, where 20% of the total population suffice to keep the world economy going and the unemployed 80% are pacified by a (media) diet of “tittytainment” - the modern equivalent of bread and circuses.

   • 2003, Katrin Müller van-Issem, Thinking the Future, page 71:

     In order to preserve social stability, they will supply “tittytainment” to the rest of the society, that being a mixture of basic living supplies and entertainment. This, in my eyes, is quite the opposite of a happy life built on mutual respect […]

   • 2005, Gustavo Fischman, Peter McLaren, Heinz Sünker, Critical Theories, Radical Pedagogies, and Global Conflicts, page 196:

     It is stuffed with video games and mixtures of info-, enter-, and tittytainment and dominated purely by economic interests.

   • 2006, Hakeem Ibikunle Tijani, Nigeria's Urban History: Past and Present, page 221:

     Their energies are being redirected to creative venture and above all their sermon of hope provided a sort of “tittytainment” that kept them out of trouble.

See also

• bread and circuses

References

• Eric Partridge (2007) “tittytainment”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 655.